This year the Kiwanis Club of Greater Pine Island donated 10% of their gate sales from the Taste of Pine Island to help a fellow Kiwanian in Haiti. Thony Thermidor is the president of the Port Au Prince Kiwanis Club. He recently returned from Haiti and spoke at the Kiwanis weekly meeting. It is very easy to forget things that you don't see. He presented a video of he and some other volunteers demolishing dangerous structures which took them weeks to accomplish. These men and women would work all day for no more than a meal at the end of the day. Thony provides meals to all and any who help, and then distributes what’s left to surrounding victims. He has been able to build a number of structures one of which they use as a school. He reminded us of what Haiti was like before the earthquake. Haiti was not a poor country, the people did not walk the streets unclothed, they had homes, albeit not what we would think of as homes in our society, but none the less they were not a starving people. They were an uneducated people, and that is still the main problem they face according to Thony, although now they face all the other problems as well. Thony shared more horrifying tales. It is easy to sit in our nice homes and have dinner with our families, safe from rain with no fear of being swept away in a flash flood. It is easy to send our children off to school and know that they are being taught the tools to help our country grow and prosper. It is not easy to think of the suffering of others. It is not easy to open your heart to a people that you don't understand or know. It is not easy to set aside preconceptions, misconceptions, and even prejudice to help another. Children are born into the world with out any control over the location or condition of the place they come into. It is up to the people of the world to open their hearts and give of themselves to help raise up these children, because they can't do it for themselves. But with the right opportunities presented to them, they can change the world.
"Kiwanis is a global organization dedicated to changing the world, one community and one child at a time".
By: Scarlett Player
